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Last month at the Canadian Association of Geographers conference in St.John’s, Newfoundland, a group of concerned geography educators came together to discuss deficiencies in geographic knowledge, work on a strategy and create an action plan to help geographic education in Canada. The group are concerned that people do not understand that geography is not just about maps, but the ability to understand and analyze spatial related issues and approach them from a geographic perspective. Knowing more about geography and the world around us can help us cope better with flooding and natural disasters and use the power of location to help make better decisions. The St. John’s Declaration is a document that resulted from the meeting that will be sent out to all the major educational institutes and professional organizations to seek their endorsements for the cause.

“The Canadian GIS & Geomatics website has been a long standing supporter of Geography & GIS Awareness in Canada, and in support geographic learning, teaching and research that is the foundation of the Canadian geomatics sector, supports the St. John’s Declaration for Advancing Geographic Education.”

I am sure that over the next few months you will be hearing much more about the St. John’s Declaration and you may also be asked to endorse and show your support for better Geographic education in Canada.

Below is the exact content from the St. John’s Declaration (download PDF version) about the St. John’s Declaration.

St. John’s Declaration (Help Improve Geographic Literacy in Canada)

ADVANCING GEOGRAPHIC EDUCATION FOR CANADIANS

At a special meeting organized by the Canadian Association of Geographers and The Royal Canadian Geographical Society, a community of geographic educators came together to create an agreement and action plan for geographic education for Canadians.

Our goal is to advance geographic education in Canada.

We affirm that spatially literate citizens are essential to the future of Canada, and in particular

the development of a coherent and relevant geographic education is essential to understand and address the issues faced by a rapidly changing world;

geographic education is built upon the fundamental elements of location, interaction, community, people, place, space and environment;

there is an urgent need to improve, update and advance geographic education in the context of economic, social and environmental issues facing Canadians and Canada in a global arena;

studying the world, its people, communities and cultures with an emphasis on relations of and across space and place are crucial;

spatial thinking increasingly informs scholarship in the natural sciences, social sciences, health sciences and humanities; it is also closely associated with science, technology, engineering and mathematics;

Canada will remain a leader in science and technological innovation with the development of geography in areas related to geospatial technologies and Earth observation.

We have therefore agreed that we will

inspire Canadians to value geography and spatial thinking;

promote geography as a discipline that integrates the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities;

“These are exciting times for remote sensing research and applications in Canada. The recent commitment of funding to launch the RADARSAT Constellation will mean a continued Canadian imaging microwave presence in space. Canadians are leaders in the development of airborne active and passive sensor technologies. We are also on the cusp of multisensor UAV platform development that promises to revolutionize high resolution data acquisition and research. Applications from marine, arctic and northern surveillance, environmental modelling and monitoring, and resource exploration are also coming of age.” Olaf Niemann – General Conference Chair

The 34th Canadian Symposium on Remote Sensing will take place in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia this summer from August 27 to the 29. This years conference will be the first one under the new independent society (the Canadian Remote Sensing Society – CRSS separated from CASI last fall).

CRSS invites all the Canadian Geomatics, Earth Observation and Remote Sensing communities and any one interested in Remote Sensing to join them in Victoria. The conference program has not yet been finalized and the deadline for papers have been extended so there is still time for those interested in presenting.

The CRSS Canadian Symposiums that I have attended in the past have all been very informative and entertaining and I am sure that this one in August will be no different. To register for the event see the event registration page. http://geog.uvic.ca/CSRS2013/CSRS_2013_En/Registration_Accommondation.html

Event: 2013 Annual Conference of The Canadian Institute of Geomatics (CIG)Date: June 5 to 7, 2013Location: Toronto, OntarioVenue: Ryerson University

Canadian Institute of Geomatics Conference

The Canadian Institute of Geomatics (CIG) is a professional association that represents the interests of the Canadian geomatics community. The CIG recently announced that they will be holding their next annual conference as a joint event shared with the 4th International Conference on Earth Observation for Global Changes. Over the years the CIG has built a solid reputation for hosting great conferences that provide the geomatics community with an open platform where they can exchange ideas or information about research and advancements in the geospatial industry.

Global change is one of the hottest research topics worldwide these days and Earth observation coupled with geomatics has proven to be a very powerful means to help study global changes. CIG conferences provides participants with a professional medium to present some of their ongoing research, projects and ideas relative to global change and earth observations with an emphasis on geospatial information, remote sensing technology, and GNSS. The joint conference will contain several workshops, keynote speakers, panel discussions and technical sessions.

The event will be hosted at Ryerson University in downtown Toronto and take place over three days in June. The last CIG conference was also held in Toronto back in 2007 and was the 100th CIG conference.

Papers and workshop proposals are still being accepted for the conference and all full papers will be published in the conference proceedings. Some papers will be selected, peer-reviewed and also published in a special volume of ‘Springer Lecture Notes’ and future special journal issues.